Objective To investigate the health monitoring situation of rural drinking water in Anhui province in 2014, and provide scientific basis for strengthening the monitoring of drinking water quality. Methods There were 60% towns of all agricultural counties (districts) in Anhui province for monitoring points. We used the "standard examination methods for drinking water" (GB/T5750-2006) as the acquisition and detection of water samples, and the "drinking water health standards" (GB5749- 2006) as the evaluation basis. Results The qualified rate of water quality was 57.1% in 2014, with the qualified rate of centralized water supply as 58.7%, school water quality as 48.6%, and the distributed water as 36.5%. The qualified rate of stream water as a source of water was the lowest (37.5%), followed by rivers (61.7%), lake (64.3%) and reservoir (66.9%). The qualified rate of shallow well as a source of water was the lowest (37.0%), followed by deep well (58.5%) and spring water (69.4%). The first 5 indicators with low qualified rate were the total number of free chlorine, chlorine dioxide, total coliform, thermo tolerant coliform bacteria and total number of colonies. Conclusion The qualified rate of drinking water in rural areas weie relatively low, especially for the distributed water supply, which had security and health risks.